Our perfectly calibrated, breathing planet. For those privileged few who have seen Earth from space, the very first thing they notice is the thin blue line of atmosphere that clings to our planet and …

A planet sculpted from cosmic violence. Earth is a very lucky planet. It has ended up the right size and in the right place. This only happened because of violent cosmic collisions. The crazy thing is…

Earth protects itself from the sun. The David and Goliath story of Earth's relationship with its greatest threat, our seemingly benign Sun. The Sun is the big violent boss of the Solar System, throwin…

Earth gives birth to life. The building blocks of life are common across the universe, but life is rare. What's so special about Earth that it emerged here? Only here on Earth have we found the elixir…

Earth, the great killer. Without the cycle of death and sacrifice, from cellular to planetary, life would not be here. From the deaths of stars, to planetary scale mass extinctions and the sacrifice o…

We are all planets. Is it possible for intelligent life to escape destruction, either from the planet or ourselves? Or are we destined for extinction like 99% of all species before us? Our best chance…

Earth's great paradox. For our planet to become inhabitable for life, you already need life. Ever since life emerged, microbes, plants and animals have all sculpted the planet's surface and air in the…

The freak accident behind complex life. All life on earth started as single cell bacteria and stayed like that for 2 billion years. Successfully spreading across the planet. So even if we do find alie…

Your brain is an anomaly. We tend to think that once the first life emerged it was inevitable that it would eventually evolve into us. But there is nothing inevitable about consciousness. For over 2 b…

There's no place like home. We wrap up the series with the story of NASA's most experienced female astronaut, Peggy Whitson, as she returns home to earth. We might possibly be the only intelligent lif…